A/N: I had a discussion with incog_ninja regarding the likelihood of people hiding in trees while trying to outrun walkers and other adversaries. Seems like it would be a good idea. So, Beth spends a lot of time in trees. Kind of a fitting title then, innit?
The day was half over. They'd ran through the dawn, after Beth had finished the man from the other camp. She'd slung his rifle over her shoulder and grabbed Carl, hauling him to his feet as walkers stumbled towards them. They escaped their grasp, putting a dozen or so down before they were in the clear. Then, Beth had forced Carl to all out run, arcing back towards the road, where they now lingered, keeping an eye open for Rick and Daryl as they slowly wandered back to the house. She hadn't said anything since she had dropped down from that tree, and Carl was back to stealing glances, watching for any sign of life from her.
She was covered in gore - they both were, but Beth wore it with an eerie calm. Blood had spattered her face, and her hands were caked with it, red from the living, black and sticky from the dead. Clumps of decaying flesh clung to the ends of her hair, and Carl's own clothing was stiff from the vile stuff drying in the hot sun. He was thirsty. His limbs ached.
"We need to find water," he spoke up as he skidded down off the road and into a ditch. His eyes scanned the overgrown grass until he found what he was looking for: a storm drain. There was a good chance water was nearby. "C'mon," he said a moment later, pushing out of the ditch and into the woods once more.
Beth nodded, her eyes scanning the road behind them, and the horizon ahead once more, before she followed Carl into the trees.
They found the stream about twenty minutes later, scooping in a few hasty mouthfuls before they began scrubbing at the worst of the blood. Beth's hands swished through the gentle current, her crooked fingers fluttering in the cool depths, and she watched, dazedly, as the blood swirled off of her fingers and mixed into the water.
"I couldn't wash the blood from my hands after I killed them," she said softly, flexing her fingers and rubbing them together.
Carl paused with another handful of water raised to his mouth, and looked over at Beth.
"There was no stream nearby. Snow was everywhere, and I wasn't gonna risk frostbite." She shrugged. "There was a lot of blood. You don't think there will be, but a human body has about ten pints of blood, give or take." She smiled wanly. "Daddy taught me that." Her blue eyes flashed towards Carl. "When we were fixing you up." She then went back to washing her hands.
The conversational tone, and the trivial bits of information she offered up were such a contrast to the quick, precise manner in which she'd gutted the man who had threatened them that morning, that Carl could only stare silently. He'd never seen Beth kill before. She'd told him she'd done as much, yes, but watching her in action had been completely different. And yet, the way she'd moved, and the way she'd handled herself, and the knife, seemed to be almost second nature, something that Carl understood all too well. He knew what she was afraid of: the monster that they all carried within them. It was a scary thought, especially when you didn't know when that monster was going to surface. He wondered if Beth even remembered it happening, or if she was so far removed from it that it seemed like a photographs in an album, a filmstrip in her mind.
They filled their bottles after drinking their fill, and then headed back onto the road. The light was lower, and the rain Beth had predicted for the day before was threatening to make an appearance. Carl hated the rain, especially outside of the camp. It made it hard to move, and hard to track (according to Daryl's teaching), and it made everything the same gray, dreary color. Finding one's direction proved difficult, too, but when Beth started up the road with a sure step, Carl didn't ask questions. He figured that she knew how to take care of herself. He'd just have to keep up.
There hadn't been time to gather much after I'd killed her. I didn't know how long it was going to take for her to turn, and I didn't know when the other two would be back. I managed to find a heavy parka with a deep hood, and a pair of boots that were a size too big, but I'd learned early on in this new life that beggars couldn't be choosers. I shrugged the coat on, pulling the zipper up to my neck, and then shoved my feet into the boots. There were no mittens to be seen, but my eyes landed on an even better prize: there, leaning in the back of the closet, was a Winchester shotgun, with a bolt-action loader. I'd used something similar at the prison, and as I pulled it into my hands and checked the chamber, I felt a tiny spark of relief. I knew how to use this.
There was food in the cupboards, that much I knew. The three of them must have hit the mother-lode wherever they'd been scouting. Having a vehicle to come up and down the mountain helped, too. I didn't take much at first, and grabbed a package of fig newtons and some tinned pineapple, knowing that I could drink the juice, too. I stuffed my rations into the coat pockets, and found half a box of ammo for the rifle. I stashed that too, and then headed for the door. By then, I could hear the first guttural groans of the newly risen walker in what had recently been my prison. Having left the limbs intact, it would soon be mobile, but it still had the door to deal with. I didn't push my luck any further, and trampled out the door of the cabin and down the rough porch stairs.
It was clear that night, thankfully, and I glanced up, easily finding the North Star. I turned south, stalking into the immediate woods. When I'd gone deep enough, I slung the rifle over my shoulder, climbed the closest fir tree, and huddled up in the pine needles, my eyes fixed on the tiny cabin.
Viewing it from the outside put things in perspective. For the first time since I'd been taken, I breathed a free breath, and held it, the cold of it stinging my lungs and seeming to wake me up from a very long nightmare. I watched the cabin, nibbling on fig newtons, cursing when I realized that I needed a can opener for the pineapple. My fingers weren't strong enough to use the knife; I couldn't afford cutting a hand at this point.
The crumbs of stale cake and sticky fig caught in my throat, but I choked them down anyway, careful not to overtax my fragile stomach. There had to be a can opener in the cabin. And some first aid supplies. Water. As I fantasized about supplies I could hoard, I went over how I might kill the other two people once they made their way back. They'd expect me to run, I knew, after suffering so long at their hands; who wouldn't run, as far and as fast as they could? But I was patient, a skill taught by a man who'd made the forest his safe-house from an early age. I could wait them out. I turned the knife over and over again, the blade flashing in the scant light coming from the half moon overhead. I could wait them out. And I'd make it worth my while.
Beth swore sharply as she moved from one patch of crushed moss to another, scanning frantically for signs that Rick or Daryl or both had come through ahead of them. According to Carl, they were close to the house; he recognized this stretch of forest. In another hour, they'd reach their shelter, but this news didn't seem to excited Beth. Instead, it made her more agitated, and her mouth was a hard line of determination, her eyes sharp, cold, and blue.
"C'mon," she muttered, gently pushing aside leaves and touching the dirt. "C'mon, Daryl, gimme somethin' to go on."
"Maybe they came through another way?" Carl called out, trying to sound hopeful. He knew the idea was a stretch, but it wasn't completely unfathomable. After all, he and Beth had gotten plenty turned around after their night in the woods, and had cut across in an arc, covering ground Carl hadn't ventured through before.
Beth grunted a reply, more just an acknowledgment that Carl had said something. At least she wasn't being eerily silent anymore. That had freaked Carl out - Beth had always been so chatty, her high, clear voice always having something to say.
Carl paused as Beth did, and he watched her turn back the way they'd come. She frowned, and toed the dirt with her boot. "This ain't right," she sighed, shaking her head. "They should have come through here by now."
"They could already be at the house, waiting for us," Carl continued with his theory, even though he knew it wasn't exactly a solid one. If his dad and Daryl had beat them back to the house, then they would have doubled back as soon as they realized Beth and Carl weren't there. Carl squinted through the dim, early evening light, thankful the rain had let up, and searched the trees for any sign of movement.
Pursing her lips, Beth shook her head once more and then sagged against a nearby tree. "No. No, they're still out there," she muttered, kicking her heel back into the tree. With a determined set to her jaw, she pushed off, and moved back into the woods, away from the house.
"What are you doing?" Carl called. "The house is this way." He nodded back towards the direction they had been heading.
"Goin' back for em," Beth replied. She cast Carl a look from over her shoulder. "Daryl woulda done the same thing." She paused for a moment. "Daryl did do the same thing."
"No way," Carl said, shaking his head. He approached Beth and blocked her way. "If Daryl didn't kill me for letting you go after him, then Maggie would. Daryl's perfectly capable of making his way through the woods…"
"So am I," Beth interjected, raising an eyebrow.
"I know that," Carl nodded. "And you're better than I am. I need you," he shrugged. "Help me get back to the house. We'll rest, get some food and some water. If they're not back by first light tomorrow, I'll go out again with you."
"I'm better on my own," Beth offered flippantly.
Carl gave her a wry grin. "Sure. But Beth...please? We shouldn't be out here after dark."
He could see her weighing her options, hesitant to take him, but also hesitant to leave him. Finally, she gave a small nod. "All right."
The sun rose like it did any other day, but I hadn't seen it for so long that for a moment, it took my breath away. The cold didn't seem to bother me as the sky lightened from lavender, to pink and peach, orange, and then finally, gold. The sunlight splashed through the dark-tipped pines, and washed over the mountain side, and the peaks in the distance. It bathed the cabin in honeyed warmth, and it didn't seem like such a bad place. But then, through the frosted, still air, and the stirring of wings in the boughs above and below me, I heard it: the groaning, and growling, of the reanimated corpse of the woman. It wasn't much longer after that the sound of tires squealing over hard packed snow filled my ears. Snow, and cold, always amplify sound; I kept my breath calm, in slowly through my nose, out slowly through my mouth.
Holdin' yer breath makes ya that much noisier, he'd said once. Cuz when you finally do take that breath, it's a gasp, an' it's loud. Breathe like you normally would. Keep your hands steady.
I blinked away the ice that had formed on my eyelashes, and I wiggled my toes in my boots, and then took check of my fingers. All extremities were accounted for; I think my thirst and hunger were overshadowed by the adrenaline of the hunt. And hunting was exactly what I was doing.
The beater of a car - an old Pontiac of some sort, brown, faded, with a cracked windshield, and a broken antenna - crawled slowly under the tree where I sat, pointed in the direction of the cabin. I'd never seen the car in the daylight; hell, I'd never seen the car from the outside. I was, however, well acquainted with the trunk.
Another trunk of a car, this one hot, and cramped, but so much safer than the one that came after. I hadn't been alone. He'd been curled up right behind me, his gaze steady as we waited for a herd to pass. He'd dragged me with him, telling me we had to go, and I'd gone, because I didn't know what else to do.
A dull ache formed in my jaw, and I realized I was clenching my teeth, watching as the car parked, and the two men who'd spent the winter torturing me piled out. The grey eyed man - I knew it was him from where I perched as he was the shorter of the two - said something, making the other one shrug and then pitch his cigarette. He then moved to the back door and pulled out a duffel that was stuffed with whatever they'd found, wherever they'd been. Together, they clambered up the steps of the cabin, and moved inside.
I steadied myself, stretching out on the branch, and holding the rifle up, aiming through the sight. I centered the crosshairs on the door, and continued to breath, listening now for commotion to start.
It didn't take long. There was a scuffle, and surprised curses rang out of the little wooden shack, followed by a dull thud. Heavy footsteps trampled through the shelter, and, just as I predicted, the front door was thrown open, and there, right in my sights, was the second man.
My finger moved with no signal from my brain, and I caressed it, pulling it back smoothly. The bullet hit him in the thigh before the crack was heard, and he screamed sharply, clutching his wounded leg, and collapsed on the front steps. Blood spewed forth in a sweeping arc, and it stained the snow that had piled up around the steps. I hadn't been aiming for a kill shot. That would have been too easy, too painless. I wanted them to bleed out slowly, to know what it felt like to fear for their lives. The amount of blood that had exploded when the bullet hit told me that I'd at the very least nicked the femoral artery. They didn't have the supplies, or the knowledge to fix something like that. He'd bleed out in a manner of hours, and there would be only one left.
The grey eyed man appeared, shouting at his partner, yelling at him to get up, to get inside, "that little blonde bitch ain't here." He grabbed his fallen friend's jacket and tugged him back inside the cabin, as his grey eyes searched frantically for my hiding spot. When he'd safely pulled his partner inside, he cast one more glance into the woods, and then slammed the door shut.
I waited up in that tree until nightfall, when a a strangled cry tore through the air. I sat still and cocked my ear, wondering what gruesome thing had just happened. Was the man I'd shot now a walker? Had he torn into the guts of the grey-eyed man? I could only be so lucky. During the day there had been movement in the trees as the sun warmed the southern slopes of the mountains. Spring was coming, and with it, the walkers that had frozen with the onset of winter were now thawing, and oozing around in melting puddles of snow and blood and flesh. They were sluggish, but determined, it seemed, and I watched them pass underneath my perch, as I remained undetected. As the sun went down, however, their movements slowed as temperatures dropped once more. It was time to move, to make my final push. I needed to get out. That had been my goal all along - to get out, out of the trunk, out of the cabin, out of the mountains, and out of myself, or the thing I had become. I still had a long way to go.